Unmanned carrier bomber jet unveiled

X-47B aircraft
Takes a page from the Air Force’s B-2


Unmanned carrier bomber jet unveiled
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Dec 17, 2008 14:28:49 EST

PALMDALE, Calif. — The Navy’s plan for its future carrier air wing took a leap into autonomous flight on Tuesday with the unveiling here of a stealthy, bat wing-like unmanned jet.

Dubbed Air Vehicle 1, the X-47B aircraft is the first of what will be two demonstration aircraft built by Northrop Grumman Corp. It was designed to test the idea of an autonomous airplane that would launch and recover on Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and conduct strike and other missions — without the hands-on controls of an onboard pilot.

Hundreds of workers joined military and company officials in a hangar at Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale site Tuesday afternoon for the official “unveiling” ceremony, where guests got a close-up look at an aircraft — the Unmanned Combat Air System-Demonstration, or UCAS-D — that only two months ago wasn’t yet assembled. The X-47B’s bat wing shape takes a page from the Air Force’s B-2 stealth bomber, which Northrop Grumman designed and built, then in secret, at this desert location north of Los Angeles.

“This will be the airplane we’ll be flying next year,” Scott Winship, UCAS program manager and Northrop Grumman vice president, told reporters before the ceremony.

Engineers will put the aircraft through a series of proof tests here and at nearby Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and will conduct its first flight before the aircraft heads east to Patuxent River, Md., in November 2009 for a year of additional testing and the official “roll out” ceremony. “We’ve still got a long way to go,” said Gene Fraser, deputy vice president for Northrop Grumman’s Integrated Systems-Western Region.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/12/navy_x47b_121708w/%2e

My God, an unmanned craft landing on a carrier. Lordy I'd like to be onboard when that happens.

Can you spell F-o-r-r-e-s-t-a-l?

nightmares and fire phobia unless it is properly contained in a fireplace or woodstove.
Seeing the headline about autonomous planes..that was where I went.

It's this:

There is, somewhere in the U.S. of A. today, a 13 year old kid sitting in front of a monitor with a joystick in his hand playing a video game...and in a few short years, that kid is going to be our next Maverick of Top Gun fame.....

frightening eh?

...in order to win. Plus, have you ever played "Top Gun" on NES? It's that bad!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofM11nPzFo0

Why the hell are we spending money on crap like this? Do we not already have enough weapons? Can we spend this money on the health care of regular Americans in stead of more weapon systems to intervene in other peoples business? Jesus Christ, I hope the Obama administration can turn this country around. This program along with the F-22 need the budget axe pronto!

I understand replacing 30-40+ year old weapons systems. But if the DoD wants their F-22s, then the iraq war will have to end and those ICBMs have got to go. They can't have it both ways, its either one or the other.